I use Google. You use Google. Everybody except Bill Gates (who uses Bing at work, and Google at home) uses Google. Heck, I even call him Uncle Google. Until now, he was the likable, bookworm uncle who in my mind was a museum curator/librarian. Geeky, and shy.

Now, though Uncle Google is the hirsute, balding fat uncle who comes to dinner on holidays and leers at your sister-in-law.

"On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google's other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future."

To opt out, follow these simple instructions: sign in, go to google.com/history, and choose "Remove All Web History." This also revokes your consent to have your search history recorded going forward.

Unfortunately for some, this will force you to rebuild some searches. For everything, there are trade-offs, I suppose. I can recreate a search easily enough. I don't need anyone knowing I searched for {+squirrels +"silver hammer" +blind +Shakespeare - android +nuts -testicles +shiraz - sirah} just last week.

I dunno about you, but I'm heading there now to take care of my quasi-privacy.

Holy crap. I always knew that using smart phones (Android, iPhones, etc.) can be potentially a problem for anyone who wanted to keep a reasonable modicum of privacy. Then I saw this, and the words "can be potentially" were replaced with "is definitely."

Though I haven't specifically found any references to CIQ on iPhones, do I believe there is something similar? <Puts on tinfoil hat> Probably.I am stunned by the duplicity and disingenuousness of the perpetrators of the data mining, especially Carrier IQ. Gotta love the quickly generated video of Carrier IQ's CEO standing in his office in shirt sleeves, all "regular guy" claiming--falsely—that their software doesn't capture keystrokes, when it very clearly does as the above video demonstrates. I really found it interesting his eyes kept flicking away from the camera. Isn't that a "tell" of someone lying? Also by taking the low road and attacking Trevor Eckhart (the person who discovered the data mining) by threatening legal action certainly torches any confidence you might have had in the eyes of public opinion. CarrierIQ: definitely evil.

Google? Well, I'd have to put you in the evil camp, too. Sorry guys, but I find it impossible that you don't know what is going on and it's a load of crap. You're infringing on the privacy of every Android phone user, and if the government doesn't step in and do something to slow it, then we will all know that the mining was done either at the explicit instruction of the boys in Washington, or with the sly wink and nod, knowing they get to root through the goodies whenever they want.